Crabbing motion is the pure sway motion of a ship without surge velocity. Thus, it can be applied to a berthing operation. Crabbing motion is induced by a peculiar operation method called the push-pull mode. The push-pull mode is induced by using a combination of the main propeller and side thruster. Two propellers generating the same amounts of thrust and rotating in opposite directions produce some yawing moment on a vessel but do not induce longitudinal motion. With the additional operation of side thrusters, the push-pull mode is used to induce a large amount of lateral force. In this paper, three-degree-of-freedom equations of motion such as for the surge, sway, and yaw are constructed for the crabbing motion. Based on these equations of motion, a feedback linearization control method is applied to auto-berthing control for a twin-screw ship with side thrusters. The controller can deal with the nonlinearity of a system, which is present in the berthing maneuver of a twin screw ship. A simulation of the auto-berthing of a ship is performed to validate the performance of the designed controller.

Hasegawa, K., 1994. On Harbor Maneuvering and Neural Control System for Berthing with Tug Operation. Proc. Of 3rd International Conference Maneuvering and Control of Marine Craft, Southampton, U.K., 197-210.